Halloween Special 2023: Infectious Stupidity
by poper466Hello! Uh, I wasn’t initially planning on making a Halloween special, but then I got an idea for one, so I decided ah what the heck. I probably won’t do special chapters for every holiday, but if I get a good idea for one and I feel like I can finish the chapter in time for whatever holiday it is, I might consider it as I did here (Although this one’s meant to be short). Also in the event that I do make special chapters like this, I will state if they are canon or not. As for this chapter… It is but it isn’t you’ll see what I mean in Chapter 5. Also, just a warning things get a little violent here, like very violent, but it shouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary for zombie stuff, which if you couldn’t tell by the title, that’s what this whole chapter is about. Anyway without further ado let the craziness begin.
January 23rd(?), 7:00 am
Team Echoes’ Base – Joseph’s Room
Coast Continent
Joseph woke up in his room and nearly fell off his bed immediately afterward. After getting his bearings, he noticed someone was knocking on his door, “Come in!” He told them.
But the knocking continued, whoever was at the door must’ve thought it was locked. Joseph walked over to the door and opened it up, on the other side of the door was Rory, but something was very off about her, her fur had turned green, and her eyes were completely blood-red, on top of that she looked like she had gotten hit by a car or something because she was super beaten up.
“Uh, Rory? Are you feeling ok?” Joseph asked.
“Raaaah!” She groaned as she clawed at Joseph.
Joseph quickly dodged her swipe and fumbled back a little, “Rory!? What’s gotten into you!?” He shrieked.
“Raaugh… Braaaains…” She rasped back.
“Oh, I see what’s going on here. The zombie apocalypse is starting and it seems Rory’s patient zero.”
Rory tilted her head and made a confused-sounding groan in response to Joseph’s conclusion, there still seemed to be at least a little bit of sentience left in her, or at least it seemed that way anyway.
Joseph noticed this and an awful idea popped into his head, ‘If she’s still sentient, does that mean if she infects me I’ll still be sentient too? If so, should I… let her infect me?’
Joseph walked slightly closer to Rory, ‘Well, it’s this or suffering the pain of trying to survive the apocalypse.’ He told himself as he proceeded to make possibly one of the dumbest decisions in this scenario, he grabbed Rory’s snout and prepared to force her to bite him, I’m sure this can only end well. He went through with it, having her bite down on his left foreleg, his fur began to turn green and his head began to spin, he fell over and shut his eyes.
After a few moments, his eyes shot open again as he leaped from the floor, “Why did I do that? I knew nothing good would come of that, so why did I do it?” He asked himself.
“Woah, dude, are you alright!? I didn’t mean to bite you, and I definitely didn’t mean to do whatever that was to you!” Rory blurted in shock.
“I think I’m fine… Wait, I can understand you again!”
“You couldn’t before?”
“Nope… You seem to have been zombified somehow, before you bit me all I was getting were groans and the occasional ‘braaaains’.”
“Well at least you understood the gist of what I was saying, I don’t know why but I’m craving brains for breakfast, oh yeah and my fur is green.”
“It’s because you’re a zombie, zombies are infectious creatures that eat flesh and brains, usually they’re brain-dead but we don’t seem to be like that given we can speak and think freely.”
“Wait, when I bit you did I-“
“Yes, you did infect me, but I kinda made you bite me, so that’s on me.”
“Why’d you do that then!?”
“Because I figured it’d be less painful than trying to survive the apocalypse, plus that whole ‘surviving the apocalypse’ trope is so overdone, I think it’s high time someone makes a story about spreading it instead.”
“Ooh, can we get some brains while we’re at it?”
“Of course! I mean, that’s what zombies are supposed to do!”
“Alright then let the infection begin!”
The two exited the room having been taken over by their new zombie instincts approached the main room of the base and made their way toward wherever the smell of brains was the strongest which just so happened to be Cinder’s room, they knocked on her door, so they could inform her that the zombie uprising was beginning with them whether she liked it or not. A few moments later, Cinder opened the door groggily, “Ugh… The Dream Mist didn’t stop my nightmares, it only changed them, I had a nightmare about weird flesh-eating Pokémon taking over the world.” She yawned lethargically, “They were all green and stuff and it was super scary!”
Joseph turned to Rory, “I almost feel bad for her now, I mean we’re literally about to recreate her nightmare.”
“But she has tasty brains for us…”
“True, I don’t feel bad anymore, the brains are gonna be so tasty!”
Cinder was still all groggy and she hadn’t realized that her friends were indeed flesh-eating Pokémon that were very much about to eat her flesh, so Rory tried to claw at her just like she did with Joseph. Cinder jumped back and shook herself awake, “Eep! Wh-why did you swing at m-” She shrieked before realizing her friends had been turned into zombies just like in her nightmare, “WHY DO ALL MY NIGHTMARES HAVE TO BE BASED ON REAL EVENTS!?” She screamed as she ran back into her room. Unfortunately, she forgot to close the door, so now she was cornered with two zombies closing in on her.
“C’mon, surrender the brains!” Rory demanded.
“St-stop growling at me!”
“I just want one bite of your brain, that’s all…”
Cinder was beginning to run out of room to run, with her back against the wall she tried desperately calling out to her friends, “Guys I know you’re still in there, don’t do this! Please! I don’t want to have to hurt you, and I certainly don’t want to die!”
But her friends were beyond reason, their minds were beckoning for brains, and her words were futile, she balled up in the corner fully expecting her life to come to an end, and then…
“Nom!” Joseph said as he bit Cinder infecting her as well, her blue fur turned a lifeless gray color while the rest of it turned a ghost-white color and smoke erupted from where her flames would’ve previously been.
Cinder fell over just like Joseph did when he was infected but jolted back up moments afterward, “Ugh… what happened?” She asked.
“Welcome to the infection!” Joseph cackled.
“The what!?”
“The zombie infection! We’re zombies now!”
“You’re joking, right? This is all an elaborate prank, right?”
“No, this is 100 percent real.”
“I should have turned you two into a pile of burning flesh and fur while I still had the chance.”
“Well, since you didn’t, you wanna get some brains with us?”
Cinder sighed, “It’s not like I have a choice now…”
The growing horde left Cinder’s room and approached Specter’s room next. The door to his room was wide open, leaving Specter defenseless against the growing horde. Having not noticed anything off about his friends yet Specter nonchalantly spoke to the walking corpses, “Hey guys, I found something weird with the crystal ball, when I stick my left paw behind it you can’t see it when you look through it, but with my right one you can still see it.”
“That’s weird,” Cinder replied. “Do you know why?”
“Oh, don’t bother trying to talk to him, he can’t understand anything other than your cries for brains until he’s been infected.” Joseph explained.
“Uh, guys? Are you ok? You sound a little, dead…?” Specter said hesitantly.
“Wait, I think I have an idea.” Cinder said, signaling the horde to stay put. Cinder got a clear line of sight on Specter and after a few moments of awkwardly staring at him, she shot her tongue at him, wrapping him up and pulling him toward her.
“What the- EW! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?”
Once Cinder had fully pulled him in with her tongue she started to shoot smoke out of her dead flame spots, aiming to prevent Specter from escaping, this seemed to be working as Specter went into a coughing fit, “The tongue… Someone cut the tongue…” He rasped.
While Specter was being suffocated by Cinder’s smoke, Rory got in a bite, infecting Specter as well.
Once Specter was infected, Cinder let go of him and retracted her new tongue, “Pretty neat, huh.” She grinned.
Specter got up and slapped Cinder across the face, “The hell’s wrong with you!?” He shouted, “That was gross as hell!”
“Sorry, I just had to spread the infection, nothing personal.”
“The infection? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Look at yourself in the mirror.” Joseph instructed.
“Uh, ok?” Specter said as he walked toward the round table in his room, he peeked into the mirror for a moment and noticed his fur had turned a dark, murky turquoise color and his eyes were neon yellow, “What the hell!? WHAT AM I!?”
“A zombie,” Rory answered, “now move over, I wanna see what I look like!”
Rory practically shoved Specter out of the way and looked at her horrifying new form in the mirror, her now fully red eyes gave off a weird red glow when she looked at them directly, “Woah that’s so sick!” She marveled.
“Sick as in putrid, or as in cool?” Joseph asked.
“Both! I look so gross but so cool at the same time!”
“I’m a little scared to look at myself then…”
Joseph looked at himself in the mirror, he looked almost identical to Rory, green fur, fully red eyes that gave off a strange glow when he looked directly at them, but one main difference was his tail, the tip of his tail looked like a wilted flower having lost its once bright orange color and star shape. He didn’t have any words, he was both terrified and disgusted with what he had become, and things were only going to get worse with time, but that was his fault wasn’t it.
Before he could let the gravity of the situation sink in, Cinder shoved him out of the way and looked into the mirror, “What happened to my beautiful fur!? It’s all white and gray now!” She shrieked.
“Reminds me of something I read a long time ago,” Joseph mentioned, “I couldn’t sleep for like a week after I read that.”
“I hope my fur has the same effect, it’d be a shame if it lost all its color for nothing.”
“That’s seriously what you’re concerned about right now!? C’mon, we NEED brains NOW!” Rory seethed in a crazed tone.
“Agreed.” The horde said in unison.
They left Specter’s room and approached Sammy’s room next, they practically bashed his door down to find him holding the giant sword from on his wall, “Stay back fiends!” He shouted heroically.
Cinder shot her tongue at him but it was useless, her tongue was slashed by the giant sword, stopping her attack, “You’re gonna pay for that!” She shouted as smoke erupted from her flame spots.
Sammy ran at the horde and swung the giant sword, but the horde just narrowly dodged his swing, it didn’t matter though, this created a safe opening for Sammy to run through the hall to warn Tiny and Slippy.
“Darn, he was ready for us.” Rory jeered.
“Well, we’ll worry about him later than just worry about infecting as many Pokémon as we can for now!” Joseph commanded.
“Got it, Slippy’s next then.”
Sammy knocked on Slippy’s door before running toward the exit to the base. To the horde’s surprise, Slippy opened the door, when the horde entered his room however he slid down the slide and bowled into them knocking them all out of the way. He made sure to knock on Tiny’s door as a warning before making his escape.
“Darn! They’re gone!” Specter huffed.
“Who cares!? Get Tiny!” Rory demanded, seemingly losing all semblance of sanity in her voice.
“I don’t think we can infect her, considering she’s not exactly an organic life form.” Joseph voiced.
“Plus, she doesn’t have a mouth, how would she even help us?” Cinder added.
“Any addition to the horde is a good addition to the horde.”
“Good point! Let’s go get her then!”
The horde knocked open Tiny’s door and found Tiny cowering in the corner, “Don’t eat me!” She cried. Yeah, the horde didn’t listen to her, go figure, but she didn’t want them to, she was merely bait for the others to escape, fortunately for her however Joseph’s logic was correct as when she was bitten by Rory nothing happened, “HA! You got PLAYED FOOLS! I was merely a distraction for the others to escape! Now you’re not gonna infect anyone else!”
This angered the horde, and considering Rory’s clearly declining sanity, what followed wasn’t exactly very surprising, “Oh well, I guess we’ll have to settle for RIPPING YOU TO SHREDS INSTEAD!” She shouted in a demonic voice.
“W-wait w-w-w-what!? W-w-w-why are you looking at me like that!?” Tiny stammered before letting out an “EEEP!” as Rory lifted her up and slammed her against the wall multiple times before dropping her to the floor, she then signaled Cinder to come over to her and they proceeded to take turns kicking her until she melted into a puddle leaving only her head left which Rory took for use later.
“HOLY HELL!” Specter gasped.
“She deserved every ounce of that.” Rory huffed.
“Agreed.” Cinder, well, agreed, “Let’s go infect everyone in Sunset Square!”
January 23rd(?), 7:45 am
Sunset Square
Coast Continent
The horde exited the base and noticed the sky had turned dark red and there was heavy red fog, they ignored this for the time being and hobbled their way into Sunset Square, well except for Rory who for some reason was still able to run, in fact, she seemed to be faster now which was strange. By the time they had all made it into town, it was completely empty and all the buildings were either boarded up or abandoned.
“RRRRRRH, THEY’VE ALREADY BEEN HERE!” Rory shouted, seemingly losing control after that whole kill count update at the base.
Joseph tried reasoning with Rory, “Rory, calm down! You’re foaming from the mouth and you-” He said before she cut him off.
“Calm down? CaLm DoWn!? EHEHEHAEHEHAEHAEHEAHEHEAEHAHAHA! THIS WORLD IS OURS FOR THE TAKING AND YOU WANT ME TO CALM DOWN!?” Rory cackled.
Rory’s insane cackling snapped the horde out of their zombie instincts, “She’s lost it!” Specter shrieked.
“Yup, and we’re not far behind her,” Cinder worried, “I think I’m starting to see things.”
“Well, what do we do about it? I don’t wanna go insane!”
“Well, unless we find out how to cure this infection, we can’t do anything about it, so I would recommend just giving in to the insanity.”
But before they could discuss a plan to cure this infection, their instincts kicked back in and they began to chase the smell of brains again. They approached the Sunset Square Supplies building and began to break the boards blocking the entrance, after they finished doing, so they entered.
January 23rd(?), 8:00 am
Sunset Square Supplies
Coast Continent
The mall was empty, not a single Pokémon was in sight, all the lights were turned off, and all the stores were closed, the only thing that seemed to have any power was the visitor counter, which counted down for each member of the horde. Everyone split up and began looking around the dead, abandoned mall for any sign of life, but nobody came, nobody was left, the mall was a trap to waste the horde’s time.
The horde all regrouped at the entrance and after coming to the conclusion that the mall was indeed empty, Rory let out another ghoulish cackle before she gave the horde’s next order, “THE GUILD THEY’RE HIDING THERE, THEY’RE PROBABLY IN THAT BUNKER.” She barked.
So the horde left the mall and made their way to the guild.
January 23rd(?), 9:00 am
SurfSpark Guild – Outside
Coast Continent
The guild was also heavily boarded, so the horde prepared themselves to rip the boards down, but as they were doing so they were hit with a stream of water.
“You like that? ‘Cuz if you did, there’s more where that came from!” Sammy shouted as he revealed himself, still wielding the giant sword.
The horde attempted to get up but they were shot back down by a stream of seeds, “Stay down creeps!” Hula yelled.
The horde was finally able to get their bearings for a moment before being knocked back down in a flash, “I’ll rip you to shreds even if it kills me!” Nail snapped.
The trio stood in front of the guild’s entrance, it seemed like they were the last line of defense for the entirety of Sunset Square.
“How heroic… too bad you’re FOOLS, I’M GONNA TEAR YOU LIMB FROM LIMB AND EAT YOUR BRAINS!” Rory boomed as she chomped at the air.
“Hmph bring it.” Nail huffed.
“I just want you to know we were never friends even before I got amnesia!” Sammy shouted as he pointed the sword at Rory.
This set Rory off, thus beginning the fight, Rory jumped at Sammy only to be slapped by his tiny little arm somehow sending her flying back. Meanwhile, Cinder was preparing to shoot her Flamethrower at the trio, however, as she readied her attack she choked on the smoke that replaced her flames, only managing to cough out a stream of said smoke and a few embers, this attack hit Hula and Nail, but neither were affected too badly by this failed attack, it did however bring their attention to Cinder.
Nail rushed over to Cinder and grabbed her by the neck, “Hmm… a bit of a shame, I was hoping you’d put up more of a fight this time… oh well, I guess it’s time to jog your memory a bit.” He said, before tossing Cinder up into the air and slashing her stomach as she fell back down, he then picked her back up and slammed her into the ground as hard as he could leaving her motionless in a puddle of blood on the ground, “One down three to go!” Nail announced.
“Great! Maybe you could lend me a hand!” Hula said as she pelted Joseph and Specter with her Bullet Seed.
“On it.” Nail said as he rushed over to Hula’s side. Hula kept pelting the two with seeds to ensure Nail could safely get in close, once he did get in he picked up Joseph and slashed him twice in the eyes, causing them to lose their red glow and turn a dead gray color.
“I can’t SEE!” Joseph shouted angrily, however, having just been blinded he was unable to follow up on his angry shouting.
‘Good! Now you can’t see how ugly you’ve all become! Some of us on the other hand aren’t as lucky!” Nail quipped. He then walked up to Joseph and let loose a flurry of punches and kicks, crossing him out of the picture too.
“Useless, useless, useless, USELESS!” Rory screamed, knocking the last line of defenders over.
“Eep! N-no stay back!” Hula cried as Specter crept closer to her.
Nail got back on his feet and rushed over to Hula, protecting her from certain doom, “You stepped out of line, didn’t you?” He asked rhetorically, “You know what happens to thieves who step out of line? They get their hands cut off!” Nail shouted as he lifted Specter up off the ground by his left paw and slashed it cleaving it clean off and dropping him onto the ground.
Specter landed on his tail, causing him to fall back from the pain, when he sat back up he noticed that his left paw was gone, “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?” He growled.
“Pfft, stay mad, it isn’t gonna help you grow your paw back.” Nail taunted, “Now to finish you off.” Nail threw a punch Specter’s way, but Specter moved out of the way and lunged toward Hula again.
“No, wait, PLEASE!” She shouted as Specter landed on top of her. She was slashed a few times by Specter as she desperately tried to shake him off of her. Specter kept slashing, even using his lost limb to splash blood in her eyes, blinding her temporarily, but suddenly Specter was knocked off of Hula with a loud metal clanging noise.
“Where I’m from, thieves are beheaded!” Sammy shouted as he swung the giant sword down at Specter’s neck, somehow the blade didn’t leave a cut but it was still enough to take Specter out.
“And then there was one.” Sammy said as he turned his attention back toward Rory, “Any sudden moves and I’ll throw this- OW! Hey!”
Rory had pelted Sammy with Tiny’s hex nut head and growled, “I’M GONNA END YOU WITH OR WITHOUT MY FRIENDS!” She shouted before letting out a screech loud enough to wake the dead, and that it did her horde raised back up, their eyes let off the same glow they had before.
“What the- Hey! That’s cheating!”
Having been resurrected, Cinder launched her tongue at the still-blinded Hula, wrapping her up and pulling her toward her, “H-help!” Hula shrieked, but it was too late, Specter bit Hula, infecting her too.
“Well, that’s just great.” Nail huffed.
“W-what do we do now?” Sammy asked.
“You get out of here, I’ve got a plan, but if things don’t work out, I at least want you to survive.”
“B-but-“
“JUST GET OUT OF HERE!”
“O-ok! Ok!” Sammy yelped, he did as instructed and ran away, but unfortunately Cinder used her tongue to grab Sammy before he could run very far, “NOOOOOO!” He shouted.
Nail growled but still decided to go through with his plan, ‘If things go right, he’ll get to live.’ He told himself. A ring of swords appeared around Nail, strengthening his attacks, before he rushed at the horde and let loose a flurry of slashes. This move proved to be pretty effective, returning the resurrected zombies to their defeated states and taking Hula with them.
Rory was the only survivor of this attack, but she was heavily wounded and unable to fight back, all she could feel was fear as Nail rapidly approached her. She tried to run away as a last ditch effort to keep the infection alive, but her efforts were in vain as Nail closed the gap and grabbed her by the neck.
“Nighty night.” He said before punching Rory in the face, ending the infection once and for all.
January 23rd(?), 10:00 am
I.D.P.K. Headquarters
Of course, this doesn’t completely wrap up our story here, the IDPK would’ve been aware of their little test subject going under, Christian was about to do his routine check up with his assistant to make sure Joseph was still alive, but as you can imagine he’s about to be in for a bit of a rude awakening when he finds out that he’s a little dead.
Christian approached his assistant’s work station to do his routine check up when his assistant stood up, “Hey Christian, what do the warning lights mean on the vital monitor thingie?” The assistant asked.
“Well, it depends, what lights are flashing?”
“Yes.”
“Excuse me?”
“Every single light is flashing.” The assistant said.
“Y-you’re joking right!? That’s only supposed to happen if there’s a code 85356 error!”
“Could you explain that in a way that makes sense?”
“It’s only supposed to happen in the case of a zombie apocalypse, more specifically, if the subject is willingly infected and then later killed by a non-infected!”
“So basically, our subject was an idiot who thought getting infected would’ve made things go differently?”
“Yep, and now that entire world is doomed, great, just what we needed.”
“Well, what do we do now?”
“I think we just cut our losses and just tell the boss there was a freak accident and that it was out of our control.”
“So what you’re saying is we should just dip and go back to the Grass Continent before the boss murders us.”
“Yup, it’s safe to say this experiment was a failur-“
Nope, you’re not finishing that sentence, I hope you enjoyed this somewhat strange Halloween special that I wasn’t even intending to make until like a few days ago (at the time of writing this). I was gonna do more with the whole “willingly infected” thing but then I realized we’re still way to early in this story for what I was initially planning and I didn’t feel like throwing in major plot spoilers into what is supposed to be a completely harmless albeit chaotic Halloween special so I just decided to make the “horde” fight some of the guild members instead (Maybe once I’ve got enough to work with I’ll make a more fleshed out version of this chapter.). Anyway let’s move onto the boss bios for the fight.
/ /Boss data downloading\ \
ɹoɹɹƎ ᙓ尺ᖇㄖᖇ 𝗘̘̚𝗿̘̚𝗿̘̚𝗼̘̚𝗿̘̚
Huh, that’s not supposed to happen, I guess I’ll just do them manually then, don’t expect anything too professional though because I’m gonna explain some of what was going on with the infected and spoiler alert: I break the immersion a little bit.
Sammy, Nail, and Hula, the guild’s last line of defense.
Lanturn initially was skeptical when Nail said that he was going to keep the guild safe from the outside, but once Sammy and Hula joined him, Lanturn reluctantly gave them the go ahead, look how that turned out, Hula’s dead now and Sammy’s probably traumatized, not to mention, he now has to explain to Slippy that all of their friends are dead, I’m sure he’ll be fine hearing that, given he seems to have gone through trauma before.
Team Echoes the fallen heroes
Due to unexplainable circumstances, Rory woke up as a zombie and having been a zombie for the longest of the horde she lost her mind first, the rest followed shortly after.
Joseph was the true cause of the infection, he had every opportunity to stop it at the source, but his curiosity and his stupidity got the better of him so he let himself get infected in hopes of seeing a rare zombie win, unfortunately they ended up losing in the end but it was still somewhat cool seeing that the zombies were at least somewhat sentient at the beginning of the infection. Moral of the story: Don’t willingly get infected it doesn’t change anything in the end.
Specter was infected after having his fate foreshadowed, yeah losing that paw kinda sucks, but given the fact that Specter is one of the smarter members of Team Echoes he was able to use it to his advantage and Hula was infected as a result.
Strangely, Cinder seems to have gotten a rare mutation given the weird tongue and all, using her tongue and the smoke that erupted from her flame spots she tried to suffocate the survivors in hopes of spreading the infection. What caused her to mutate into a smoker is unknown, but what is known is she was possibly the most dangerous of the horde. The survivor’s only saving grace was that she was unable to use her flames, rendering her pretty weak without her new abilities. Oh, yeah, and a lot of things having to do with Cinder were very reminiscent of other things, tons of references to things other than the obvious Left 4 Dead reference, I challenge you to try to pinpoint the references.
Rory’s abilities were a bit strange, at first they seemed reminiscent of the viral from Dying Light with her mobility remaining intact and all, but then they just kinda became their own thing, probably because of her declining sanity. Being the leader of the horde, she naturally had some of the most vile abilities of the bunch, being able to flat out revive her teammates with just one scream is nothing to scoff at. She also chucked Tiny’s head and used it as a projectile, pretty crazy, right?
And finally Tiny, poor little Tiny, she was used as bait so that the others could escape. She was under the correct assumption that she couldn’t be infected but she neglected to account for the fact that the zombies would’ve been enraged by this and taunting them sure as hell didn’t help, in the end she met a cruel fate and was used as a projectile by the horde.
That’s about it, I put a decent amount of references into this little thing (including the aforementioned zombie game references) so again have fun pinpointing them all (I’ll probably end up just putting a list of them somewhere anyway) and yeah that about does it for this thing.
On to Chapter 5 where the events of this chapter are somewhat explained! (Honestly thinking about it now though it might seem a bit cliché)
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